


broken, tired bodies

by astrolatryy



Category: The Blackout Club (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Malnutrition, Nightmares, Suicidal Thoughts, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-12
Updated: 2020-05-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 02:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,278
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24137128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astrolatryy/pseuds/astrolatryy
Summary: Being in the Club takes a toll on you.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 7





	broken, tired bodies

**Author's Note:**

> Written as a vent piece and to get my thoughts out on just how /dark/ the Blackout Club is as a game when you really look into it.

Sometimes, in the light hours just before dawn, when she sits up in her sleeping bag with her hands trembling because she had a dream-not-a-dream and she's surprised she's still in the boxcar—sometimes, when she feels faint and shaky because she hasn't eaten more than a few bags of chips in days but she can go a few more days like this before she has to stop rationing so it's fine—sometimes, when she's alone in a corner of the hideout, and everyone else is asleep or too focused on making sure their friend doesn't get up with their eyes still shut…  
  
...sometimes, she sees why kids decide to go to the other side.  
  
Because SPEAK-AS— (she cuts herself off mentally before she gets to the end of their name, unwilling to even _think_ it) —because the enemy is the reason all of this is so fucked up, the reason why the term "Redacre Runaways" _exists_ , the reason why kids are dead— (the reason why she hasn't seen her best friend in weeks)  
  
—but, sometimes, the call of "hot cocoa and a blanket" from a searching Lucid sounds like paradise, even if the taste of chocolate has been ruined for her by that week when the only food she could find were candy bars.  
  
——  
  
When she finally goes to sleep, she has a dream about being at the dinner table with her parents again.  
  
"How was school?" they ask.  
  
"Fine," she replies.  
  
"Did you learn anything new?"  
  
"Not really."  
  
On and on the conversation goes, while all the while their faces steadily become blurry and melt away, and their eyes drift from one side of their heads to the other, and she's tired, so tired, and suddenly she's walking through the same backyard she's run through on missions a million times before, but there's the indistinct voice of a Lucid behind her but suddenly she can't run, she can't run—  
  
—she wakes up with the sick taste of fear in her mouth and checks the time.  
  
_3 PM_.  
  
She sighs and goes through her backpack, looking for a soda.  
  
It's fine. At least she got three hours of sleep this time.  
  
——  
  
She doesn't know if it's bad or good that she's stopped crying after missions.  
  
——  
  
Sometimes she wonders what sacrificing must be like.  
  
She's one of the kids that don't follow any voices; she doesn't murmur things into the flickering light of a lighter, she doesn't whisper to herself at night before she goes to sleep, she avoids saying _any_ of the voices' names—'the Rebel' and 'the Hunter' and 'the Chorus', but never THEE-I—HUNT-THE—SPEAK-AS—  
  
—she doesn't _do_ worship. They're not gods; they're just… awful.  
  
She doesn't trust even the ones that seem nice. If one Voice wrecked this town, if one Voice is the reason she no longer hears the voices of people she regarded as familiar, as safe, (she never feels safe) then what's to say the others aren't any different?  
  
Still, she has to wonder… she's heard the stories of kids giving up their bodies. Letting someone—some _thing_ else take the wheel. What's that _like?_  
  
She theorizes that it's like… going to sleep one night, but not getting up. Just like falling into oblivion, and when you come back days or weeks or months have passed with something else wearing your body.  
  
...she doesn't really remember what _sleep_ feels like.  
  
But that's fine, because she's going on a mission in an hour or so anyways, so it's good that she's not asleep right now.  
  
It's fine.  
  
——  
  
The mission went poorly, and at the end of it all she ends up supporting some kid she's never seen before and probably won't see again, one arm under her shoulder, because she sprained her ankle real badly falling from the ladder in the fucking _library_ and she had gotten several nasty scratches and bruises herself helping them out of there.  
  
As she guides the kid to someone else who managed to find some medical supplies in one of the houses—which is technically illegal and stealing but at this point everything they do is and they need it more—she reflects on the blood soaking into her hoodie. At this point she wouldn't be surprised if it was covered up by all the other stains; but clothing is expensive, and she's never had any luck with snacks, and at this point she's just glad that she has enough tranquilizers in her pocket to get her enough junk food to last for another week, maybe two if she stretches it.  
  
She wonders if the Sleepers and Lucids are getting more vicious, or if her wounds are just taking longer to heal because her body's just so… so fucked up.  
  
She wonders if the kid will make it out of their next mission. It's always the newbies that seem to make it out the least, even though the Club tries to pair veterans up with them. They're the ones that get their ankles caught as they dart up the ladder, they're the ones that freeze up when they hear a Lucid yelling… they're the ones that need to be replaced.  
  
Eventually, they'll stop getting _replacements_ , she thinks.  
  
And then she tries not to think about that, because that'll mean they're losing (not like they aren't already), and surely their missions are doing something. They're fighting back; that's all that matters, right?  
  
And this mission didn't go _that_ bad anyways, right? Nobody got suppressed. Everybody came back mostly in one piece.  
  
It's fine. She's fine.  
  
——  
  
That night she dreams of people with the faces of those she's left behind and those she's seen just once, twice, then never again and her mom and dad and aunt and uncle and all the blurry masses of the Lucid's heads storming the hideout and taking everyone away.  
  
That night she dreams about the newbie she made sure got out alive—Jewel, their name is Jewel—and sees them fall from the ladder over and over and over and over again.  
  
She dreams of falling from the ladder herself except she doesn't hit the ground, just keeps going and going and going and going until she's woken up by another kid because it's her turn to do a mission again.  
  
How much sleep had she gotten that time?  
  
It doesn't feel like enough.  
  
It _never_ feels like it's enough.  
  
_It's fine_ , she lies to herself.  
  
——  
  
She doesn't remember the last time she _didn't_ have some sort of exhaustion headache.  
  
When she looks in the mirror, her eyes seem sunken in her head, ringed with a purple so intense that she thinks it could be mistaken for a black eye out of the corner of someone's eye.  
  
Her hoodie seems so loose on her body.  
  
——  
  
She's tired. So tired; in a bone-deep way.  
  
She's tired of flinching every time there's a loud noise outside, terrified that someone has found the hideout at last.  
  
She's tired of always feeling sick and slightly nauseous from too much caffeine, from the constant intake of junk food to stave off starvation and little else. She's tired of finding that the hoodie that fit her just fine when she put it on before she ran out the front door seems looser and looser on her day by day.  
  
She's tired of all her muscles feeling so sore and achy and worn out not from the missions, from the running, (she doesn't have it in her to run for very long, these days) but from the fact that she's always tense. She's always taut, ready to bolt—when was the last time she _relaxed_? There's an ache in her jaw from gritting her teeth all the time.  
  
She can't remember the last time she wasn't scared. For her life, or for her friends—she misses being watched over at night, of taking turns with someone she trusted—terrified that one day, she'll end up a body in the Maze like all the other kids.  
  
When was the last time she had anyone to speak to?  
  
"I'm fine," she tells anyone who asks.  
  
When was the last time she meant it?  
  
——  
  
The very last boxcar at the end of the hideout, the one everyone treats with a certain kind of… awe? Fear? She doesn't know—is the one that always has its door closed. The dull red feels like a warning; maybe it's an association born from the red doors.  
  
Or maybe it's the fact that she's always held a quiet terror for this place.  
  
She's never been one to interact with the Voices, after all.  
  
The metal is cold against her palm as she slides the door open and shuts it behind her—her breath comes out in vague, white puffs in the dimness of the car, so much darker than all the other ones that kids mill about in.  
  
She notes with some sort of feeling creeping up in her throat—surprise? disgust?—that even here, sleeping bags litter the ground. Space has always been at a premium in this shitty little hideout, but she's always thought of this place as somewhere to be avoided. She can't imagine sleeping here.  
  
A brief flicker of guilt over her own hypocrisy stirs in her chest. In a way, she _is_ going to be sleeping here.  
  
Everything about the hideout always seems to be fading, broken, second-hand. Scavenged when they could; stolen, otherwise.  
  
But the ritual space is different. Something about it feels… cleaner, so to speak. More organized. Even the air seems clearer; alone with only her own thoughts and the flickering candlelight, she realizes that she almost feels safe.  
  
The centerpiece of the space has to be the whole mirror set-up. She's never been the shortest of kids, but even so, the glass table the mirror sits on (complete with space to set a lighter) combined with the height of the mirror itself gives it a few inches over her.  
  
She glances into the glass and sees the same tired, weary face looking back at her. There's the thin line of a fresh scar running from the corner of her eye down to her cheek; she got that from a Sleeper grabbing madly at her, its nail scratching deep before she managed to shove it away. There's the same dark shadows under her eyes, reds and blues shading into purples. There's the same utter exhaustion written in her cloudy blue eyes, to the point where no matter how hard she tries to make eye contact with herself the girl sitting in the mirror refuses to drop her thousand-yard stare.  
  
She glances behind her, at the square painted neatly on the wood floor. It's well-kept; the paint is bright, the lines are straight and narrow, and for a moment she wonders who maintains this part of the hideout. Surely someone has to relight the candles when they burn out?  
  
...her eyes drift onto a flickering flame, spinning and twisting and turning, and she heaves a sigh from deep in her chest.  
  
She looks back at the mirror.  
  
Suddenly, it seems much more intimidating.  
  
_Now or never_ , she thinks, looking down at the glass table, irrationally afraid of her own reflection.  
  
And what she wants to do is so… simple. As easy as letting go; giving up, and letting oblivion take her.  
  
It's just like falling asleep and never waking up, right?  
  
There's a name on her lips, but she quickly finds that her throat feels tight and her breath comes in short, fast bursts.  
  
Her heartbeat is ringing in her ears, and she's dimly aware of the way the lighter feels as she fishes it out of her pocket and places it on the ritual table.  
  
She's dimly aware of stepping back into the neatly painted square and falling to her knees.  
  
She knows what she has to do. Just… close her eyes, and offer herself up. Simple as that, right?  
  
It's as easy as just… letting go.  
  
She whispers into the dark—her voice sounds pitchy and on the verge of tears, even to herself—"SPEAK—"  
  
Her voice catches in her throat, cutting her words off. Her voice seems to echo dimly in the car, long after the failed attempt to say… to say their name.  
  
She tries again, hands trembling, squeezing her eyes shut to ward off impending tears.  
  
"SPEAK-AS—"  
  
A sob escapes from her, cutting her off once more.  
  
_"_ SPEAK-AS— _AS_ —"  
  
She forces herself out of the ritual square, shaking, tears falling from her eyes, one after the other.  
  
She can't.  
  
She _can't._  
  
——  
  


Just before dawn, at a time when the sky is illuminated with the first shades of orange and yellow but the sun hasn't yet peeked over the horizon, a lonely, tired, aching girl sits in the ritual square, crying.  
  
"I-if anyone—if anyone's out there… if anyone's even _listening_ —" she says, stopping and starting, chest heaving with the force of her breaths.  
  
"—i-if anyone's listening… p-please. _Please_ .  
  
Give me a reason to live."  
  
She bows her head and _sobs_ .  
  
Behind her, the door to the ritual car opens and closes, casting a ray of morning light into the dimly lit car for just a few, brief moments.  
  
Someone places their hand on her shoulder.  
  
She turns.  
  
It's Jewel, holding a carton of ice cream.  
  
"I heard you crying. Want to share?"  
  
——  
  
In the time just before dawn, when the sun is peeking over the horizon and most of the kids in the Club are asleep, two kids tucked away in the corner of the ritual space share a carton of ice cream, laughing softly between each other.  
  
And, for once, everything is fine. 


End file.
